My son lives in Basel, Switzerland. He wants to meet us in Paris on a certain date for a few days before we go onto Basel. It is $300 cheaper to fly into Basel than Paris, even though we have a 2 hr lay over in Paris before going on to Basel. What happens if we just get off early in Paris? Has anyone done this before?
Posted by
New Paltz, NY
9110 posts
If you don't take your connecting flight the rest of your plane reservations (heading back to the US) will be canceled. By staying in Paris you're doing a "stopover" which is prohibited with most discounted air fares. Be aware that there are also high-speed trains which connect Paris and Basel in just three hours. http://rail.ch
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
Wilf: Michael is correct. If, at any point, you do not complete a segment of your itinerary, the airline will cancel the rest of your itinerary. So, don't do this with a ticket that includes your return to the US. You can get away with booking a round trip ticket within Europe and not using the return portion (at least, lots of people, including a friend of mine, report doing this with no trouble). As for the ticket being cheaper for the longer route including the stopover, that's unfortunately common. When I flew through Stockholm to Russia, it was cheaper than flying to Stockholm. It's all about supply, demand, and what the market will bear for a particular destination - and the airlines have no intention of letting anyone get around their price structure, if at all possible. Side Notes: This occurred domestically, too. I have a book from 1989, explaining that flights through Atlanta to Florida (mostly price-sensitive vacationers) were often cheaper than flights to Atlanta (mostly business travelers). So, the book tells you how to book a ticket through Atlanta to Orlando and just not use the last portion; this was called a hidden city ticket. The book also talks about getting a discount on the Concorde by flying it New York to Heathrow with a ticketed connection to Warsaw, and just deplaning in Heathrow. Remember, this was back when Warsaw was still behind the Iron Curtain, and so very much NOT in demand, so it was cheap to fly there. Again, you can't do things like this now, and haven't been able to for some time.